SLEEPING WITH THE WHALE                                   

When the whale speaks, the entire ocean intently listens

When he swims to the surface to take a breath.

If the sun is out, his head will glisten.

All in the sea will understand

Except you and me

Even if we 

Listen.

But in my dreams, I know it’s true

The whale loves me

And even you.

Why I Travel

I have been asked why I travel as much as I do. I try to be somewhere besides home 2 weeks a month or longer for months at a time. It is a reasonable question because it is more than most people would want to travel.

I have always traveled if I could and never thought about it. I don’t think of my traveling as vacations, but rather as field trips in the school of life. The world is my classroom, and I love to learn, so I travel. There is a Chinese proverb that is 8,000 years old, and I am paraphrasing, that it is better to take 10,000 steps to a new place than to read 10,000 pages about it. I believe that. No words can reveal the beauty of a mountain, or the odors that rise from a marsh, or the sound of a waterfall. These things should not just be learned about; they should be absorbed in your soul, and only then can they be part of you. 

When I was able, I went to places I had no words to describe—and slept on the ground, in a tent, or belayed down a Cliff to see what was under the water in the remote spot below. I can no longer do that—my body won’t take me to those places anymore, but I have to move on anyway I can to keep learning. 

 In an Amazon River village in the upper Ecuadorian jungle, with no roads leading to it, I was told by the shaman that the secret to long life was never to stop experiencing life. He said that when you do, you are through. You might as well. Feed the environment and do some good. Placing that advice into my world was not difficult because I already believed it. I just didn’t know it.

Now I am traveling to timeshares and on cruise ships. I can still do that with my Walker and find new things in life that I had passed by without appreciating. When the time comes that I must ride in a scooter or a power wheelchair, I will find things even closer to learn that I was unaware of, as I walk over them. An example is the bellflowers that grow in the lawns. They are so small that you have to get down on your belly with a magnifying glass to see them. They are stunning.